A new report paints the most detailed picture yet of the internal strife surrounding the White House’s freeze on hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, which is at the center of President Donald Trump’s impeachment in Congress.
The report from The New York Times, constructed from interviews with dozens of officials and previously unreleased documents, sheds new light on the key figures in the Trump administration’s dealings with Kyiv.
It also probes Trump’s own insistence that the congressionally mandated military aid package be withheld as he sought investigations into Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who worked on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father served under President Barack Obama.
On Tuesday morning, Trump repeated his accusations against the Bidens and his criticism of the impeachment process.
The president’s latest tweet is sure to add some more fuel to the impeachment war: a clash between Republicans and Democrats over whether the rules of Trump’s eventual trial in the Senate should allow witnesses to be heard or questioned.
Trump was impeached in the House on articles of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his dealings with Ukraine. While the aid was being withheld, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to “look into” allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as a conspiracy theory about Ukraine meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
The aid was eventually released in September, after Trump learned of a whistleblower complaint about the call, which spurred Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry. The White House has refused to cooperate with House Democrats’ investigation.
No Senate Republicans have said they support Trump’s impeachment. It’s widely predicted that the GOP-majority chamber will not reach the two-thirds vote threshold required to convict Trump and remove him from office.
But the new details could provide leverage to the Democratic leaders who are pushing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to accept their demands for the trial rules.
Here are some new details from the Times’ report:
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/31/report-sheds-light-on-ukraine-aid-freeze-at-center-of-trumps-impeachment.html
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